World War Z - A Great Story That People Hate

There is a surprising amount of fervor surrounding a book that has recently been turned into a major motion picture. The movie has yet to be released, but will this summer. The book I am speaking of is none other than World War Z by: Max Brooks. Like I said, there is a surprising amount of um... discussion surrounding the book and its contents. As a writer and someone who loves to read and who really enjoys a well told story I must say.. even though the whole Zombie thing is a bit played out right now, the book itself is wonderful.

I thoroughly enjoy the manner in which Max Brooks has told his story. If I am being perfectly honest, one of the reasons for it is the fact that I employed a similar convention in one of my short stories. Either way, Mr. Brooks uses it to his advantage in the story and it gives him a platform to tell multiple stories on the same topic without having to break from this character to that. To do so when the story is trying to attach itself to that character at the same time could be devastating to the story itself. But because he tells the story from the perspective of a writer interviewing multiple people about their various roles before, during, and after the Zombie outbreak, he has the liberty to tell multiple stories without losing the reader. Just wonderful.

Now, for some reason there are a lot of people out there who are boo-whooing this story, and for someone to simply say they do not like the story.. fine. I can handle that and they should express their distaste in a classy manner if they feel so. I would. However, many of the people who are expressing their dis-like for the story being told are not doing so because they do not like his story. They are doing so because they feel that the story Mr. Brooks is telling is one of American Conspiracy! Yes, that's right. These people think that Max Brooks has written a hidden secret plan for America to turn communist and to condemn its citizens to a life of prison camps and political re-education. Can I just say that I have never heard something so foolish in all my life!

As a person who has always looked at things in an objective and fair manner, I took it upon myself to read and listen to some of these so-called claims. I had to hear or see for myself what these people were seeing that I was not. Without going into too much detail, because I would not give them that satisfaction, many of them are simply taking text out of context from the story and putting many of their own words into a sentence here and there to make it fit their little scheme. That is what this boils down to for me, a scheme. I think in some ways this is nothing more than people trying to get some publicity for themselves. Which to me is downright class-less.

Like I said, I really do not want to give these fools too much "air-time" so-to-speak, but I had to at least mention what was going on. Beyond all that craziness you have a book that tells an entertaining story in a very entertaining way. Now.. let's take a look at something else. I have never been a big fan of audio-books. I prefer to read the book myself and I feel that the book or story losses something if I have to listen to it. Plus I never had that much time in a car to listen to a whole book and I don't like listening in 20 minute sections. 

However, there is a youtube page that carries an audio version of the book that is done marvelously. Some guy named Tucker1012 has taken this book and put a myriad of voices to the characters and done so perfectly. I don't know who this guy is but he has done a great job. Anybody who likes to listen to their books or just does not have the will to read should check it out. I will post a link to the page at the end of this article. I have also gotten my hands on the MP3 of this recording and will put that up on the blog as well for anyone who wishes to check it out. Before I do the latter however I just want to make sure I am not infringing on anybody's rights. Once I find that out I will make it available.

Again.. World War Z by Max Brooks is a wonderful story. Although the Zombie apocalypse has been done and over-done in many ways these days it is always nice to hear a fresh re-telling of the story. Especially from such a unique perspective. If you are interested in this type of story you owe it to yourself to check this book out, you will not be disappointed. And do yourself a favor, stay away from much of the craziness that for some reason surrounds this book. I don't know if people have it out for Mr. Brooks or if there are just too many nut-cases out there, but there are those who think this story is a secret manifesto of some kind. Unbelievable. Seriously, check the book out.. you will be happy you did.

World War Z - Audio by Tucker1012

Solar Events

Yesterday, March 17th 2013 was a special day. Yes, it was St. Patty's Day. But that's not why I am deeming yesterday special. Yesterday was unique in that the Earth was hit with solar particles the like we haven't seen in years. On Friday (March 15th) the Sun let out a CME that just happened to be pointed towards Earth and was essentially double the power, speed, and velocity of what a normal or average one would be. So no, this was not an Earth shattering event or something that made national news (it did not by the way), but it was special.

Predictions for the Northern Lights or Aurora Borealis were for them to be seen as far south as Wisconsin. I am in Illinois and I looked North last night but could see nothing. I did not see any reports from people residing in Wisconsin either as to whether or not they were lucky enough to see any lights. However, it does stand to reason that this is not the last time this year that we will have such an event.

The Sun goes through cycles just like every other living thing. Yes, the Sun is alive. At least in my opinion. Not a sentient type of alive mind you. But as a living, breathing, heaving, living thing. It does not have organs nor does it have anything besides chemicals for that matter. But it goes through cycles like anything else. Since we have started recording them we noticed that they are 11 year cycles. Every 11 years the Sun Spots, CME's, Solar Flares, etc.. all spike. We are now at the climax of the 11 year cycle and that is why we are seeing more and more Solar events lately. That is also why I claim that last nights "almost" event will not be the last. I will report on anything I learn or see regarding this as it really interests me.

However, right now it is time to walk Dakota (my Boxer). If I do not get her walking down the block and rumbling through the freshly fallen snow she will not stop whining and I will not get anything done. So until then....

Decisions, Decisions.

I find myself in a bit of a quandary. It seems that I have somehow found myself at a crossroads of sorts mentally. If you have read the previous post you will know that I eluded to the fact that I do not put much weight behind conspiracy theories and other such "stories", because that is what they are... stories. As a fiction writer I often use real factual people, places, and things and sort of inject them into a story that could take place if certain occurrences take place. This is common as I am not the only writer who does this. It is imperative to utilize the state of affairs between governments, the causes of wars or conflicts, or the reasoning behind terrorist attacks to formulate a story. Especially in science fiction.

Another step to putting together a story is research. Unless you want your story to be very simplistic and dull you must do a vast amount of research and to a wide variety of subjects. What comes out of this is a wealth of knowledge about a great number of things. That is, providing of course, the writer is actually doing all of the above and not just, shall I say, mailing it in.

So I find myself a couple days ago reading up on the theories and claims of what turns out to be a group of people associated with Alex Jones and Infowars.com. In reading (and listening mostly. They put much of their material in video format) some of what they/he is saying about various topics it got me thinking. Just how far do I want to take this? Just what exactly am I doing here and what am I trying to accomplish?

See my original goal here was only to look into some of the stuff that my son was viewing and maybe, possibly, write-up a quick rebuttal to a couple of the more "ignorant" points this man was making. That was it. I would then go back to working on my short stories and book(s). The problem with this is the information I was finding would lead to another source or more information. This circle would then get me to a point in which I was intrigued and I wanted to learn more. Soon I was researching more out of my curiosity as opposed to strictly for the article or piece I was meaning to write in the first place.

So what is the problem with that then? Well, in a sense, nothing really. But I have done this before. I have put myself into a position of wanting to uncover the big conspiracy. I have engaged my curiosity to a point of no return, and while the result is a lot of reading, learning, and note-taking, it can be better summed-up by saying it is a lot of time and work. OK fine. So work I am not afraid of. I have always been a hard worker and I am very, very capable of working very hard and for long hours. However, this is not the problem. The problem is time. Time right now, for me is a valuable commodity. It is something that is in short supply so I have to budget what little I have available for whatever project I am working on.

Now obviously my plans and schedule are of vital importance to myself and you, my reader, could care less. That is how it should be. As a matter of fact, the very nature of this post is more of a "that's your problem dude" kind of thing. That is just fine, and like I said, expected.

Personally, I would like nothing more than to outline a detailed response to the groups claims (some of which I could actually get behind), but for now I will have to stick with my opinion-based articles based on news of the day and science/tech sector news. Aside from that, writing both my book and my short stories must be prioritized a bit higher as the need to complete these projects increases. Rest assured that I will "go after" or utilize some of the material that has come from their camp both good or bad (or stupid) in an article here or there and I always cite sources where appropriate. Trust me, you will know when I am posting something related to one of the theories from Infowars.

Until then...

Conspiracies and Me

As a writer I try to avoid certain things. I try to avoid things that might cloud my mind depending on just what it is that I am trying to write. If for example, I need to remain objective about a particular subject I might avoid resources that are too overly biased. This is much in the same way that I might try to avoid reading the reviews of a new movie that I am going to see so as not to spoil my opinion, entertainment, or outlook. It is in this vein that I try to avoid getting wrapped up in conspiracy theories.

Of course I must admit, there are those who take these things extremely seriously and for them I almost feel sorry. I'm just not sure if anything in life is worth that much energy and struggle. Then there are the theories that in my opinion are just, well... funny. I mean they are funny in the sense of just pure craziness. The kind that make you want to stand up and exclaim, "who the hell, or what the hell gave you THAT idea!?" You know what I mean?

Like I said, I do what I can to stay away from these things. However, the other day my son brought up a couple things that kind of made me re-think that approach. My son is in 7th grade and is a very intelligent kid and a star athlete. So he is not the kind of kid who is apt to get involved in crazy ideas. But, thing is, I could tell by the way he was talking to me that he had put some thought into this and that he had also spent a good amount of time doing some research of his own. The topic? The American financial crisis, the reasons we have said crisis, our history of creating money from thin air (the debt and federal reserve system), along with, and I didn't think this belonged with the others but when you get past the initial shock you understand why it was, the book World War Z.

As much as I would have liked to just ignore all of this and hope that it would just go away I do not think I can. As a father and as an intellectual, I feel that I must at least try to educate my son in things that I had thought I wouldn't have to talk about until he was maybe in his twenties. Either way it is going to happen. The good part about it all is that with the extra research that I will undoubtedly have to do I should have some great material for an article or two or three. One thing that I definitely have on my list is to denounce this one fool who is on YouTube and claims World War Z is our governments secret manifesto to taking over society. I will have fun with that one.

Even though I sometimes say it too often, stay tuned. The upcoming material should be very interesting at the very least. And who knows, maybe when I start tearing into the YouTube fool (Alex Jones on the Alex Jones Channel) I might even decide to do it in video format. That might be fun. Trust me, I will keep everyone posted. Until then...

Remove Bloatware the Easy Way!

There have been a ton of applications over the last few years that have promised to handle the daunting task of cleaning your computer. Sadly, most of them were just a ruse aimed at getting people to install the software only to pollute the computer with its own spyware, malware, and even a virus or two. Even when people go to download a software application from download giant CNET you have to be extremely vigilant. Every time you download something from them you are running the risk of installing a toolbar or other such junk that no one needs. Problem is, they try and make it seem as if the toolbar is part of the process of installing the software you actually wanted.

Of course this is not the only cause of what has long been called bloatware. Anytime you bring home a new computer the hard drive is polluted with crap that you do not need and will most likely never use. People spend hours deleting software using various means and different websites that promise to help. As a service tech myself I cannot count how many times I have been called because bloatware has caused some sort of problem on a system. The best thing that anyone can do is to delete anything you do not need or better yet, uninstall it through your control panel. This too can be a chore, especially if you do not know what you are dealing with. This can be hard even for a seasoned computer pro.

Well rest easy my friends. I have found a tool that will save the day. Not only will this application make getting rid of junk so much easier. But it will give you information about what you are deleting and what scores of other users have done with that same piece of software. Coupled with their website the application itself is priceless. I am referring to a piece of code entitled Should I Remove It?

As I said, the application and the website both do a wonderful job of first giving you information to help make your decision about deleting the software easier. Once you know what you are dealing with, you will know if you can safely remove the application without possibly making a mistake and uninstalling something you or your system may actually need.

The application is very easy to use and the best part about it is that it does not install or use any 3rd party applications to get rid of things you delete. The application will load the original uninstall software from the application you are removing. This way it is assured to get every file associated with the offending application because it is the application itself that is doing the deleting. The fact that this application does its job in such a simple yet effective manner is what makes it so great. If you couple this with a couple other great tools you will be able to keep your computer clean and running in top form for a long time.

The website is also a great place to start if you are still unsure about getting rid of things on your system. You can type any application that you find on your system into the search box and you will be presented with a bunch of information on that particular file. What else was installed with it, where it comes from and where on your system it resides. Of course you will still get the best piece of info in my opinion and that is what did other people do with it. What is so great about that piece of information is that even if you are not sure about the application or what to do with it, you can at least make a somewhat safe decision based on what thousands of others have done.

The website can be found HERE and you will find links on the home page to download their software also. That is up to you however. The application does a wonderful job of handling most of the tedious work of deleting the junk for you but if you would prefer to do it yourself you can still do that. Just utilize the web site and the information on it and you will be set to go.

Hotmail Will Be Replaced By Outlook.com

Online email is big business. Well, at least it is for the big companies like Google and Microsoft. Speaking of which, Microsoft is looking to take a bite out of Google's share of the email market with the launch of Outlook.com. Microsoft has forever operated Hotmail as their free email offering and for a long time it was pretty popular. I had a Hotmail account once.. once.

Of course I dropped Hotmail a long time ago and now use Google. As a matter of fact, I use Google for most everything today. It gives me a self-perceived advantage to have all of my data on one service. Especially a service as robust as Google. Yes, I said robust - because it is. Have you taken a look at all the various things, data, and options your Google page gives you? If you have not, then you should. Back to email.

Outlook.com is hoping to take away from Google's reported 425 million users. Yahoo comes in at 293 million and Hotmail (Soon to be converted to Outlook) comes in at a measly 267 million. Well, I wouldn't call that measly, I would be happy to have that many customers for anything each paying me a penny for a service. I would be rich!

Either way we will have to wait and see how well Microsoft does with this new venture. I do not anticipate them hurting Google all that much but I do think this will be a good move for them and could revitalize their worn-down Hotmail service. So all-in-all this is a good move by Microsoft which is seen by many to be the old man standing on the popular corner with the young guys (Google, Yahoo, and Apple). Well.. actually I would equate Apple with a 30-something to Google and Yahoo's 20-something.

Grammys and Music - Everything Changes

So as is my standard posting schedule, subject matter, ideas, so on and so forth, I have a few things that I focus on and the rest is shall we say... "fair game". So at the moment I will take on The Grammys. Actually, to be a bit more precise, the music of today.

I will not (I can not) review the Grammys as a comparison to the shows of previous years. There is a simple reason for this, I have not watched an entire show before. After all we have to remember, this is a show that has some awards thrown in. Not that there is anything wrong with that. There is entertainment value in almost everything these days and music is at the core of entertainment. As a result, the awards ceremony in the music industry needs to have flair and excitement. It needs to wow it's crowds. I don't mean the fans watching from home. They need to wow their peers. The fellow entertainers sitting in the audience. They need to be in awe of what they see being presented. That is hard to do every year. As I stated earlier, I cannot speak to previous years, but I think this year... they did just that.

Ratings-wise the Grammys have historically been good for CBS. According to TV By The Numbers the show has averaged around 26 million viewers for the last 3 years (not including ratings numbers from 2012). I did not include the 2012 show in those averages because there was an unusually high viewership last year due to the death of pop star Whitney Houston. The show had around 40 million viewers last year. So what did the show do last night? Well, last night the Grammys got about 28 million viewers which is right in line with what they have been and just a tad higher. So it is safe to say that CBS was happy with the results of the shows viewers.

Of course, that means almost nothing to the average person like you or I. Either way, I still think it is interesting data to discuss. But we wont do it here or today. The Grammys is an awards show that if you ask me does it right. There are plenty of awards shows out there, big and small, that do things drastically wrong. However, the Grammys do it very right, and I will give you the one reason that I say this.

The Grammys are a hit because of the musical pairings they give fans and have over the years. They put classics together on stage with newcomers. Old with young, male with female, rap with rock, they will put it all on stage and the best part about all of it? The fans want to see it. In addition to the historical pairings and duets they put together, the tributes they produce really do the original performers justice. They pay homage to their heroes, icons, and idols and they do it well.

Take for instance last nights tribute to Bob Marley. Bruno Mars and Sting performed for a bit and the Ziggy and Damien Marley joined them on stage. It was truly a magical performance. I am not a Bruno Mars fan either. I have heard a couple of his songs, but I can't say that I like them. However, last night his renditions of Marley's tunes was amazing. He really did all the Rasta proud!

So what about the music? Well aside from the show aspect of the Grammys we have the music itself. Music is a wonderful thing. It truly is. It can be a form of communication, entertainment, relaxation, medicinal therapy.. music is really universal. But what has happened to music over the years is mostly evolution.

Many people will say or have said (myself included), "What has happened to the music today?" The answer is.. Nothing! Well, nothing out of the ordinary anyway. Music goes through it's changes and evolutionary periods much like anything biological would. Of course music is not a biological organism but in this way it certainly can act like one. In the earliest days of humanity music (whatever there was of it) was most likely just a collection of odd sounds that sounded pleasing to the person making the sounds. In some ways this definition could be also used to describe some music today - 2013.

Over many eons, music has changed, formed, changed again, stayed stagnant, had a revolution, changed again, etc.. there is no set pattern to any of it. Music changes along with the society that develops the music. As we change so does the music. So if someone was to really think about that question asked earlier, "What has happened to the music today?" You could in a sense say that nothing has happened to the music, but commercialization has taken shape around it.

Yes. This is a new term I am introducing to fray. Commercialization can be described in two ways when you are discussing it and music. In its most peaceful form ways for people to make money from the music. Now in another more drastic and dangerous way it can be said as changing the music in order to make money from it. See the difference? There are those who will do both through various periods in their career in music. But most times money will control all of it. That is what happened to the music today.

So let's consider what we figured out. The Grammys were a hit last night and if they continue with their current formula I don't see any reason why they wont be successful for years to come. The historical pairings are just that.. historical. If you choose not to watch for whatever reason that's fine. But you will be missing out on some of the best performances of our time. Music itself also has a history all its own. Even though it follows the society that it comes from, don't mistake it for conformity. Music by its very nature is rebellious in form and sometimes function. Regardless, it is always entertaining and that is both its advantage as well as its disadvantage. People will always try to make money and entertainment is a great money-maker. When music is the entertainment we have to be careful.. what if anything is going to change?